Superteam All-Stars (RAR!)

[Ahriman238]

Like fantasy football for the comic book crowd.

So one night ROB (random omnipotent being, Q is overdone) appears to you in a dream and tells you that over the course of the new decade things will change rapidly and the world will hold previously unthinkable threats. Trying to get him to elaborate yields nothing. But he does tell you humanity will surely die, from disaster or invasion or whatever your tiny brain can imagine, but he's giving you an out. He will make real any seven comic book (or comic book-like novel or web serial) heroes, retroactively inserting them into continuity so when you wake they, their struggles and enemies will have always happened. You, as a comic book reader, must choose seven heroes who you believe can band together and save the world from an unknown cataclysm, with powers, skills and personalities useful to both the cause and to working effectively together.

You may choose a point in continuity to be their present, say if you liked the energy-powers Superman. In cases where their history is unclear, say they sold their marriage to the devil and rewrote history recently, you will choose what events from the narrative did and did not happen.

[Mr Bean]

If we chose a low powered team does that mean the relevant threats will scale?
Or does picking Superman ensure that Lex is running around not to mention Dark Side?
Because that strongly influences who you put on the team if you also get their Rogue's gallery too.

[Jub]

Does Manga count or only western comics?

[Tribble]

Captain Planet
He-Man
Optimus Prime
Liono
Leonardo, the Blue ninja turtle
Aquaman (Superfriends)
Jason the Red Power Ranger

Their combination of cheesy dialogue and powers of friendship ought to be able to neutralize any threat with ease.

[Grumman]

I could see Iron Man being a good pick, both because an inventor hero can make the world a better place in more ways than just punching people and because his Rogues' Gallery sucks.

[Ahriman238]

If we chose a low powered team does that mean the relevant threats will scale?
Or does picking Superman ensure that Lex is running around not to mention Dark Side?
Because that strongly influences who you put on the team if you also get their Rogue's gallery too.

The heroes rogues galleries are not part of the threat. Everyone begins safely in prison, dead, or in distant space with no interest in coming near Earth again, in the near future. On the other hand, if you choose Superman people will at least have heard of Darkseid and know that he's out there and has tried to conquer the Earth once before, if Batman people have probably heard of one or more killing sprees by the infamous Joker.

[Enigma]

Superman (Silver Age or whatever era that he's at his peak)
Hulk
Reed Richards
Iron Man
Batman
GL Hal Jordan
Wonder Woman

[NeoGoomba]

I remember doing something similar like this over on SB.com years and years ago. I think we actually drafted up rules beforehand too, like an actual draft order, certain "positions" for characters to fill (like, no QB spot but a leader spot, Strongman/Brick spot instead of RB, etc). It was a lot of fun, and served no real purpose other than killing time. The BEST of purposes!

Team Leader: Optimus Prime
Cosmic: Silver Surfer
Brick: The Tick
Brick #2: Savage Dragon
Brains: Dr. Manhattan
Street Level: Slapstick
Street Level 2: Wolverine


Good luck killing any of these guys. Or for that matter, making them stay dead.

[Borgholio]

What we need is a team that has more than just brute strength (although that will come in handy). I think that having a massive think tank of sorts will be very helpful in coming up with a solution that involves more than just HULK SMASH.

1. Superman - All his powers plus charisma and natural leadership ability.
2. Batman - Highly intelligent, capable of assisting with investigating the threat and devising a plan to combat it.
3. Bruce Banner / Hulk - Also highly intelligent. When the shit hits the fan, the Hulk can...well...smash.
4. Tony Stark / Iron Man - Skilled inventor, has access to advanced technology. Might butt heads with Batman though...
5. Does Voltron count as a single character? If so, having a giant space-capable fighting robot can't be a bad thing.
5a. If Voltron does not count, Optimus Prime. He is not only a natural leader and a skilled fighter, but he has access to the Ark and all of it's advanced tech.
6. Professor Xavier - having a powerful mutant who can read minds and control others would help against the leaders of the invasion.
7. Jor-El - While not typically considered a superhero, he would naturally have the same physical strength as his son here on Earth but more importantly, he was a highly regarded scientist on Krypton. He would possess knowledge of Kryptonian sciences and technologies that even Superman wouldn't. Having one of the premier Kryptonian scientists working with the team would provide a massive advantage. Probably have Stark and Banner drooling over some of the stuff he knows how to build.

[Batman]

Wow. Given the threats I've already faced ones that unthinkable to me is bad mojo. Let's see-

Clark & Kara (or, if animation is in, only Clark)
Drs Fate and Strange
Agatha Heterodyne (or, if animation is in, Phineas & Ferb Flynn-Fletcher)
Silver Surfer
Reed Richards (Agatha/the F-Fs are great at building things but not so hot on analytic science)

It would unsurprisingly help if we knew more about the nature of the the thread-which is, of course, why we don't.
But I think I covered all the angles.

[Ahriman238]

I do have a plan (well, mostly I ripped someone else off out of laziness) but I'm curious first what people will pick in the absence of intel.

For myself, I went a bit more obscure:

1.) Green Lantern Aka Kyle Rayner (DC)- Kyle is the only green lantern to really demonstrate an imagination after being given a tool limited only by imagination. Green Lanterns are too flexible not to have one, and Kyle is just more interesting than the others, at least until he took half-a-dozen steps beyond godly power and martyred himself for the entire DCU. I still remember the first time I met this new GL, the 90s JLA relaunch and I was amazed by a green lantern that created packs of robot dogs, space fighters and giant mecha as opposed to big green fists and bubbles. I take him after he beats Nero for the last time but before he becomes Ion and restores the Corps.

2.) Weaver Aka Taylor Hebert (Worm)- Taylor has the power to control every arthropod and annelid (bugs and worms) with "a six block radius" though I do believe her range triples halfway through the story with little explanation. Not that impressive right? Well, she learns to be smart, tactical and above all ruthless in using her powers. As long as she's conscious and there aren't sheets of flame all over the place, she's pretty aware of where everyone is and what they're doing within her range, and she's a master at battlefield control and coordinating friendly forces. In particular as Weaver she likes to make cords of spider-web and have her swarm place these in inconvenient places for the opposition, she also has a habit of making spider-silk uniforms for her team. She started as an ineffectual wannabe-hero, infiltrated a group of villains, decided she liked the dark side and became a supervillain Warlord of a major US city before defecting again and paying her dues to earn a position of trust and respect with the heroes. She has a truly absurd record for creativity under pressure and winning fights that should not be possible, and for helping others come up with creative uses for their powers. In fact, if she were less young and ruthless, she'd be my first pick for team leader. Obviously the post-timeskip Weaver, right before everything went to hell, late enough that I'm not pulling a minor into this.

3.) Stasis Aka Mark (the Infected)- Mark was a baker who got his own cooking show shortly before his power manifested, he freezes time. He doesn't age while time is frozen, nor does he seem to need food or water, he can move things around, people included, but cannot operate large equipment, drive a car use an elevator or a computer etc. The first time his powers manifested, he spent a subjective decade wandering a frozen world before he taught himself meditation from books and learned that the world started moving again when he achieved serenity. He's spent an awful lot of time meditating since, and learned to keep his cool in any situation because when he loses it, the world freezes again until he calms down. Mark has been known to spend months combing the woods for a missing person in an instant, and uses his power all the time for cooking and cleaning. He is a reasonably dedicated pacifist, but with his powers he can afford to me.

4.) Mystic Aka Giselle Villard (Mystic, by CrossGen comics)- You need to have a finger-wiggler somewhere, I thought it a toss-up between Fate and Strange before remembering there are other uber-mages. On Giselle's world of Ciress, there are seven guilds (well, and one defunct) of magic, each representing very different techniques and power sources. These are: Nouveau (light) Dark Magi (darkness, blood magic) Astral (mental magic) Enchantress, Shaman (spirits) Tantric (sex) and Djinni. Each guild is led by a guild master, who has in their head the guild spirit, literally the spirit of the ancient guild masters (who defeated an evil god) and have since been handed down for millennia acting as advisor, teacher, and occasionally student to generations of the most skilled masters of that guild's magic. Then Giselle, a party girl uninterested in the mystic mumbo-jumbo, accidentally steals all seven guild spirits, taking on their powers. There's a great story of her learning to take responsibility, securing the reluctant aid of the spirits, and at the point I'd take her (when CrossGen went bankrupt) she had resolved to not rely on them but learn magic herself from scratch.

5.) Hive Aka Sam Everheart (Whately Academy)- Sam Everheart was a retired sniper for the Navy SEALs, working as a janitor for a computer company, until corporate raiders tried to steal an AI-controlled nano-tech swarm with more processing power than any eight supercomputers. Everheart, in the spirit of action movies everywhere, slaughtered many of them, but in the process was injured and containment was lost. The Hive bonded to Sam, turning him into an advanced cyborg that could serve as a symbiotic host (and, per the Whately idiom, turning him physically into an 18-year-old girl). The original Hive could kick the Master Chief' butt, but after nearly dying Sam became effectively the T-1000, well, T-X anyways, still has a metal skeleton, mini fusion plant and enough fleshy bits to make flowing through things difficult. On the other hand (s)he can detach arbitrarily large numbers of nanites to do whatever is needed. Sam's military experience and contacts are nice, mostly I figure on Hive filling the super-science/royal smart person role. Not as much firepower as Stark would bring, but a lot less likelihood of personality conflicts.

6.) Dragon-Eye (Skraypers)- He's a guy whose pretty strong (might have trouble lifting a really big truck or a tank) and invulnerable, can control fire, has another power that lets him disorient people and kill their balance and a handful of minor psychic powers, good at hiding from psychics or telling when something is wrong with someone, mentally or because they're mind-controlled or an imposter. He is a master at both refined martial arts and simple street brawling, being very much a "street hero," and mixes both into his style. Has been fighting the good fight for decades, finally earning respect despite looking like a cyborg with lizard-y instead of chrome-y bits. Has also mentored numerous heroes which is very good, a couple here might use the help. Taylor needs to learn to throttle down, and Giselle still has a lot to learn in general even if she's over the bratty phase. In fact, I rather expect him to be the team leader.

7.) Eidolon aka David (also Worm)- a Southern kid, tried to enlist, was rejected, attempted suicide. Got a better offer, from people experimenting with giving powers. Widely considered the most powerful person in the Wormverse, Eidolon's power is quite literally to pull new powers out his ass as the situation requires. Specifically he has four "slots" for powers, he can give up a power whenever he wants and get exactly what power he most needs in return, some of these are incredibly powerful and flexible, like the gravity manipulation power, some almost prosaic, like teleportation or lasers. If he doesn't voluntarily surrender a power it just sort of weakens over time before going on it's own. For a long time he was crippling himself by trying to cling to powers, only giving up one or two at a time, because he believed his powers were fading and so they were because of this. I'd snatch him shortly before his demise, when he realized that. Eidolon... did a lot of very nasty things, because he believed they were necessary, because ultimately he still saw himself as a soldier just following orders. He was almost pathetically needy to be relevant and to make a difference, so I'm hoping a chance to do that without the secrets and lies would go over well.


And that's it. I really thought hard about Clark as the leader they needed to bring them all together, perhaps I read the Nail too intently? But ultimately decided Dragon-Eye or Hive could step up and see to it. At least half the team (Weaver, Eidolon, Mystic) have some serious issues that I believe Hive or Dragon-Eye could help them through. All in all, I feel this is a good mix of firepower and flexibility which I consider rather key in a superteam. One of the few things that stuck with me after the Civil War aftermath was a scene where Tony Stark was explaining the new Initiative (every state gets a superteam, usually lame regional themes, with the Avengers as a "federal" team) and told Ms. Marvel to pick the new Avengers. She asked something like "Why don't we tap everyone within shouting distance of the Hulk's power level and call them the Avengers?"and Tony told her that the Avengers worked because they had a variety of powers, skills and outlooks that gave them the capacity to handle whatever got thrown at them. This team has firepower, good tactical experience, a variety of outlooks and specialties, and even two team members who can teleport the team around for mobility. The big question mark is whether they can mesh and work together, while some have issues I don't see anyone being unable to work with the others.